12th Annual SEEA Conference & Research Symposium

"The backyard garden can be a place a great educational opportunity, but biophobia can lead to decreased backyard biodiversity. To counteract biophobia, personalized ecologies can be explored. Personalized ecologies are simply direct interactions with individuals of other species (Gaston et al., 2023). Understanding people’s personalized ecologies, even in their own backyard, can help create strategies to increase biodiversity (Gaston et al., 2023; Sanders et al., 2018). However, the actual impact that exploring these ecologies has on biodiversity has not been well documented (Gaston et al., 2023).

Often while gardening, organic disturbances such as “weeds” and reptiles will be encountered. These disturbances (“garden surprises”) can sometimes be unwelcome and illicit various negative responses from the gardener depending on their previous lived experiences, normative beliefs, or education. Many gardeners also have stories to accompany their experiences that help illustrate the epistemology of their responses. Quite often these stories contain some sort of misconception about “weeds” or reptiles that lead to their removal from the backyard garden, inherently decreasing its biodiversity. Understanding these epistemologies and normative beliefs can be useful in future gardener education.

The purpose of the study is to explore the personalized ecologies of backyard gardeners and their responses to garden surprises. This information can be used to understand how their epistemological foundations guide their responses to garden surprises. Participants were members of the Master Gardeners program in Mississippi. Researchers developed an educational intervention about flora and herpetofauna that might be found in gardens of Mississippi. Participants were given an initial survey to assess their comfort with and understanding of these types of garden surprises as well as a follow-up survey to find if their views of garden surprises had changed as a result of the intervention. Participants were also given an option to conduct a live interview with the researchers.

This qualitative study utilizes a pragmatic philosophical approach to find if educational interventions can correct misconceptions that may be present among backyard gardeners. Research questions include:
· What inherent biases do Master Gardeners have in relation to unwanted surprises in the garden?
· How does education about venomous/non-venomous snakes and their usefulness impact the perspective about unwanted garden surprises?
· How does education about weeds and their usefulness impact the perspective about unwanted garden surprises?


In total, 70 participants responded to the initial survey, 46 responded to the post-survey, and 20 requested the follow-up interview. Preliminary qualitative results indicate that the educational intervention had an effect on the participants’ garden surprise responses. Misinformation about these garden surprises was prevalent. Place-based knowledge and normative beliefs play a large role in these misconceptions. Biophobia was a common thread and often manifested as fear of reptiles in their gardens or fear of the impact that unwanted plants could have on their garden. Further analysis of the data can lead to a deeper understanding of the link between misconception or misinformation and biophobia. This information can be used to create educational materials for gardening groups to increase awareness of these creatures' garden values."

Discover how land-use practices affect water quality with EnviroScape models, 3D mini watersheds. Learn about point and nonpoint source pollution and explore steps like identifying local environmental issues, launching community projects, and using EnviroScapes for sustainability education.

An EnviroScape model is a 3-D self-contained mini watershed that allows participants to observe and simulate, in real-time, the interactions of precipitation with various land-use practices and the impacts they have on streams, lakes, water supplies, and groundwater. An EnviroScape model allows you to simulate many sources of both point and nonpoint source pollution, create floods, pave over a field here, plant a buffer there and see what happens. We have two different versions of EnviroScapes including the standard Watershed/Nonpoint Source Model and the Coastal Watershed Model for demonstration. We will discuss human and non-human impacts on ecosystem dynamics in various environments.
actionable item(s) will attendees
1. Identifying local environmental issues, businesses and organizations can develop projects to address them for sustainable development and reduction of environmental impacts.
2. Implementing community participation such as organizing a cleanup or starting a recycling program.
3. Borrowing the EnviroScape Models to educate the public of point and nonpoint source pollution.

Learn how the power of the story of President Theodore Roosevelt’s black bear hunt in Mississippi has influenced positive attitudes, behavior, and conservation efforts on the bear population in the southeast.

This session enables attendees to participate in a hands-on mapping design challenge centered on the grand global challenge of saving the Earth's biodiversity. The Mapping to Conserve Biodiversity in Mississippi Design Challenge engages learners in data-driven, evidence-based biodiversity conservation decisions that reflect current efforts in science and policy. This 3-dimensional, CCR-aligned activity is based upon the principle of Half-Earth, a concept conceived by the late American biologist E.O. Wilson and adopted by a new generation of scientists and conservationists who conclude that we must set aside half of Earth's land and seas for nature to maintain biodiversity and ensure the long-term health of our planet. This principle informs programs like America the Beautiful and the global 30 x 30 efforts aiming to restore, connect, and conserve 30% of lands and waters by 2030.

To complete the challenge, learners receive data on the conservation status and range of Mississippi vertebrate species, along with high-resolution printed maps illustrating the distribution of cities, agriculture, human pressures, biodiversity hotspots, and existing protected areas in the state. Then, by interpreting both mathematical and visual data, learners apply their understanding to identify the ideal areas of Mississippi for protection based on scientific Half-Earth principles while also considering human needs through an equitable lens. Reflecting real-world conservation practice, each design solution is unique and involves decisions and compromises that learners must defend with evidence. While the activity is open-ended, students must support and communicate conservation solutions with data and provide peer review through gallery walks or similar team exchanges. A provided teacher guide includes prompts to encourage student debate while offering suggestions to facilitate resolution through data. The activity raises learner awareness of resources for research and presentations, especially those that link local biodiversity conservation to global efforts.

The activity was developed using evidence-based practices to facilitate student learning through student inquiry and ownership and has been effectively implemented at the middle school, high school, and college levels. To help ensure the activity can be effectively used in a formal educational setting, it employs science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts to address Mississippi College and Career Readiness Standards in middle school science and high school biology courses. Participants will receive access to the materials for classroom implementation and a structured framework to be modified or extended to serve their practice.

At the end of this activity, learners will be able to
1. Use maps to identify how humans use and protect land and species ranges and to illustrate conservation biology decisions.
2. Demonstrate how diverse information and mathematical data can be layered onto a map for analysis.
3. Contribute to the collective understanding of biodiversity conservation through small-group and whole-class discussions by evaluating evidence, engaging in argumentation, and forming solutions.
4. Articulate the complexity of making conservation decisions and the need to incorporate diverse disciplines and perspectives, including ecology, geography, agriculture, forestry, and urban and cultural traditions, to inform conservation efforts.
5. Construct an explanation of humans' multiple impacts on biodiversity using interactive research tools that are dynamically updated to reveal global and local species distributions and changes in human land use.

Introduction to using the Project WILD curriculum to manage and overcome fear with nature-based learning and activities!

‘Postcards from the Past’ is a classroom-based program in which middle and high school students investigate how human cultures have interacted with coastal environments throughout history. Students in the program learn about the animals of the Gulf of Mexico (with a focus on shelled animals), human use of coastal resources, anthropogenic change, and the science of geochronology through short, hands-on activities. They adopt an individual radiocarbon-dated clam (0 to 6000 BP) from one of several Gulf of Mexico locations. This is a starting point in investigating how human cultures used and affected the Gulf of Mexico during their clam’s lifetime. Pre-recorded videos from art educators are shared that serve as inspiration for expressing this understanding in a mixed media ‘Postcard from the Past’. Participants in this session will get their hands dirty exploring foolproof art techniques and learn how to bring the environmental and cultural history of the northern Gulf of Mexico into their classrooms. ‘Postcards from the Past’ is a collaboration between Dr. Paul Harnik (Colgate University) and the education program at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.